The first week is usually the most boring and exciting of weeks for most students, I bet. I know mine was.

After flying in Saturday evening and then sitting in my apartment with nothing to do until Monday afternoon, I welcomed the appearance of my roommates and lunch with my advisor, Dr. Heather Ricther. Dr. Ricter gave Paige Matthews and myself a brief overview of the project and what to expect over the summer, as well as setting us up with reading material and some game design tutorials. Looking back on what I have learned in this week alone, it's amazing to me that I've only been here a week.

In one week alone I've become proficient in three different game development engines, producing a few assuming games in the attempt to learn them. For the project, which is essentially the development of a multi-player role-playing game which teaches freshmen introductory computer science, we are using 3D Game Studio, Game Maker, RPG Maker XP and Unreal Editor 2004 to develop several quests that users can actually play through. Together with my fellow DMP students and other undergrad researchers, we have brainstormed several quests already, the process of storyboarding them and producing low fidelity proto-types the task for next week.

Below are copies of the playable games developed this week while I learned the programs. Feel free to download and play them, though be aware some are still in development.

Kill the Clowns - Developed with Game Maker, this game involves clicking on the clowns as they bounce off the walls, their speed increasing as you go.

Shoot 'Em Down - Developed with Game Maker, this game is a 1945 remake with a bit of my own personal twist.

Fishing Loops - Developed with RPG Maker XP, this short task teaches people the proper formating of while loops, while using a real life example.

The following link is to the project's website: http://g2learn.com